If you’ve ever checked out a movie to take the kids to and seen it has a PG or PG-13 rating, assumed it to be safe enough for viewing but then find out once you’re in the theater you were dead wrong, then the world of video games isn’t too far off the mark as well.  For movies these days the line that once designated what was considered markedly defined has become moved or at the very least – blurred.

Take a recent viewing of the “Hangover” I took my 15 year old son to see. I knew it was an R rated film so I expected him to hear profanity (he is 15 and has heard it before), and probably some nudity. At 15 I felt he could handle some boobies and I was pretty sure he had some exposure through biology class to understand what was what. So all in all not a big deal. However what I didn’t expect to see (spoiler alert) in this R rated film was at the end of it all was a shot of a large African-American women going down on one of the the main characters in an elevator. I when I say going down I mean she had his male reproductive organ in her mouth in full view.

Now I’m no prude and I admit it was simultaneously funny and shocking but it was not something I would have expected to see. This was after all a general public theater and not a porno theater so seeing oral copulation on the silver screen I felt was out of context. This was a R rated film?  The same could be said of the movie “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay”. Equally funny but in one scene (spoiler alert again – sorry) the main characters arrive at a friends house where a bottomless pool party is happening. Normally you would expect in these kinds of films to see topless parties but beautiful women with no bikini bottoms on was a new sight. Welcomed to me and many in the theater but again unexpected for anyone used to R rated films not showing these types of explicit behaviors or body parts.

When did the rating board suddenly become so loose? When the film Midnight Cowboy came out years ago it actually had an X rating because of some scenes and dialogue which if put in front of the board now would barely get a PG13.  I admit that our tastes and acceptability in this country has come a long way and considering how much our kids are exposed to its no wonder the attitudes regarding ratings have become more lenient than ever before. 

But is our current rating system really doing the job it is supposed to do?

Video games have come under a wide range of attack by religious organizations and politicians who either have a desire to keep our kids safe or just need a platform upon which to pontificate a rallying cry and gain attention to their careers. To be fair to the video gaming industry, the real fact is that just like violent movies and hard core music has no real influence on a child’s ultimate behavior, so it is with video game violence shows absolutely no effect on kids perpetrated violence in their own lives. In fact studies have shown quite the opposite has occurred. 

Rating systems are supposed to inform parents about what is in a game and not influence or recommend if the game is viable for a particular child. Every person is different and what one kid can handle may not be suitable for another. Instead of simply labeling a game E for everyone, T for Teen or M for mature, a better solution that would help parents and kids understand what goes on in the game would be to have more descriptive liner notes.

Take the M rating for games. M for mature which usually means the player should be around 17 and be mature enough to handle extreme violence, blood, gore and some simulated (usually off camera) sex or sexual content. For a game like Grand Theft Auto or Left For Dead or even Gear of War this kind of description would be accurate and a M rating warranted. But yet this same M rating is used for Halo which although shows violence (of a Star Trek type), it doesn’t have any blood, gore or sex. In this case the game is either rated incorrectly or again a more detailed analysis of the game environment would give buyers better information. 

At one video game center, Next Gen Video Arcade in Newbury Park, CA (www.nextgen-vga.com) parents are often surprised to find that games they would have normally not allowed their kids to play are not as bad as they previously thought. That’s the big advantage of actually seeing the game in action prior to purchase. The Next Gen Video Arcade also provides the gamers with the opportunity to change games at will so kids can experience as much or as little a game as they wish. But for parents the real plus is being able to examine what the game is about, how their kids respond to playing it and then approving or disproving it’s use.

But since game store don’t provide a play first situation, the only way parents can truly decide if the game is right for their little gamer is to either take them to the arcade or rely on a rating system that is in desperate need of improvement.